The Meaux Criminal Court sentenced the Conforama group on Thursday to a fine of 20,000 euros, found guilty of having recorded and stored data on unionized employees in the early 2010s in a North store.
The former manager of the Leers (North) store was also found guilty but exempt from penalty.
As requested by the prosecutor, the two defendants were released for “automated processing of personal data without prior declaration to the Cnil” (National Commission for Informatics and Liberties) and “misappropriation of the purpose of processing personal data”.
“Conforama will always continue with its business practices as long as there is no sentence to dissuade them,” Manuel Aires, representative of the Force Ouvrière central union in Conforama, reacted to AFP.
At the center of this old file – “it is not the priority of the seized judicial police” according to the president – two files found in 2011 and 2012 at the Leers store, closed since then and where most of the forty employees were unionized.
Inside there are “lists of employees with subjective mentions and that refer in particular to union affiliation,” described the president of the 3rd correctional chamber.
A lost USB drive
Among the mentions he noted: “R (red, editor’s note) dark CGT”, “claiming… to leave as soon as possible” or “present in the CCE (central company committee)”.
For the accusation, it is a “total deviation” from the strategy of the allies, a managerial concept implemented at the time in the company and intended to facilitate the execution of projects by categorizing employees with a color code, to starting from the “committed” with the “reluctant”.
“This was only intended to favor Conforama financially, in terms of productivity, in the management of its teams,” said prosecutor Léa Dreyfus, before requesting a fine of 20,000 euros against the group.
Against the manager of the store, the only physical person fired, a “scapegoat” dismissed shortly after, he had requested a fine of 2,000 euros accompanied by a simple pardon, stressing that he had “collected and brought out that data.”
Conforama’s defense argued that there was no material evidence that the group was the source of the incriminated files. “You have no certainty about the origin of these documents before filing a complaint” from the FO union, said the group’s lawyer, Me Benjamin Grundler.
A USB key containing the files was lost during the investigation.
Source: BFM TV
